The New York City Anti Violence Project is outraged following the release of footage (Be aware: the language is very NSFW) that it claims shows anti-gay police officers attacking a group of three gay men in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn late at night on Sunday, June 3.

The three gay men appearing in the video above, Josh Williams, Ben Collins, and Antonio Maenza, were walking past the 79th Precinct when one was accused of public urination and subsequently assaulted by an excessive amount of police officers. Leave it to New York City’s finest to completely drop the ball on solving the recent string of hate crimes and spend their time doing what they do best: attacking innocent civilians.

The survivors reported that they were walking past the 79th Precinct when an NYPD officer accused one of the men of public urination and attacked him, throwing him against a police car. The officer was joined by other officers who also attacked the man, throwing him to the ground and pepper spraying him while he was in handcuffs. The survivor was handcuffed tightly, causing lacerations. The survivor’s injuries were treated at a hospital, where he was again restrained with wrist and ankle cuffs. The group of officers also arrested the other two survivors.

We can’t say the group of “survivors” chose the best language possible to deal with the scene at hand, but without a doubt, an unnamed police officer’s alleged use of the word “faggot” during the altercation is completely unacceptable.

The AVP has announced a press conference to address anti-LGBTQ police violence and this issue specifically on Tuesday, June 11th at 2pm, at One Police Plaza.

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14 Comments

“We can’t say the group of “survivors” chose the best language possible to deal with the scene at hand, but without a doubt, an unnamed police officer’s use of the word “faggot” during the altercation is completely unacceptable.”

LOL, that’s really laugh out loud funny. But what to expect from a reporter who can’t even look at a calendar.

Typical with the cops, but good that one of the men whose friend was assaulted caught these creeps on camera, and especially taped the cop screaming out the homophobic F-bomb.

The thing to keep in mind is that if these gay guys had been black (or Occupy protesters) and had been yelling at the cops like this they probably would have been beaten to a pulp, even with the cameras rolling, so thankfully it did not come to that.

But it nevertheless shows how awful they can be, and how they need to be reined in.

I have avoided jury duty for 30 years by calmly explaining that I remember how police officers behaved during and immediately after Dan White’s trial and that I would never, ever trust the word of a police officer. Never. I view them as legally sanctioned thugs.

My husband is in the NYPD and I showed him this. He says he deals with ignorant, disrespectful a**holes ALL DAY! And some of them ARE in the police force. Still, you have to look at this story from both sides because people love to play the victim.

An officer calling the kid a faggot doesn’t mean that it’s an attack against these guys because they’re gay. Not defending the use of that word, but people use it all the time- gay or straight. And WHY would an officer use this language? Again, I’m not saying the language is alright, but let’s be real here- the man was breaking the law! Whether you believe it’s worthy of an officer arresting someone over, it’s still against the law to publicly urinate wherever you please. And the kid was probably not being arrested for the public urination, but for his and his friends provocation. The video doesn’t capture the entire incident. It doesn’t show what escalated the police behavior and it’s likely due to the belligerence of the gay guys giving the officers attitude. Have some respect for not only police officers, but for the community- don’t go around pissing wherever you like. How would you like it if someone came up to your house and pissed all over your front door?

If you do get caught for public urination, your best bet is to apologize and accept any ticket that the cop may give to you. You most likely won’t be arrested for it unless YOU blow it up and give the cops attitude.

Wow, not to bright. Whenever dealing with law enforcement, for whatever reason, when you resort to calling them fucking pigs, and you are recording the incident, one, it’s not going to turn out in your best interest, and two, the recording will not be taken seriously. This is not Rodney King getting beat down, it’s a bunch of 20somethings whose vocabulary is limited to fuck, fucking and pig, and 10 other words. You want to be taken seriously in an excessive force claim, don’t document yourself behaving like a punk. Oh yea, and better to record the incident without such a commentary that you recording it and that you are going to get the cop fired. There is something called a police union. Good luck with your threat.

Also kinda funny they would get so upset being called ‘faggot’ after they have called them fucking pigs repeatedly.